Monday, June 22, 2009

Oh hai.I know, it’s been a while.I was trying to grow a beard, which required all my concentration.Here’s the things that happened while small hairs were growing out of patchy areas of my face:

Ripley does not like you.Nixon loves you.It really doesn’t matter who you are, I’m confident this will hold up.Unless you’re Amy, in which case they both love you so much they will cry unless at least three of their limbs are wrapped around you at all times.

When people ask what I will remember about my second father’s day I will say it was the day the girls started leaning into each other, touching their foreheads, and laughing about it like maniacs.It is gut wrenchingly adorable.As you know, “What do you remember about your second father’s day?” is a question people get all the time.

I have completed the snail project.Will he win the big race?I’m sure we’ll find out around 2025.Animation takes a long time.By that time he will probably be a cat instead of a snail and the race will take place on another planet and all my brilliant words will have been changed by a screenwriting supercomputer.Until then, please don’t bring up snails.Or racing.Or my soul crushing battles with procrastination.Ask me about my second father’s day.

Did you know that talking beavers are really expensive?Like, they cost more than your house.I mean, your house might cost more than a talking beaver, but if it did I doubt you’d be reading this.You’d be skiing with a celebrity on imported snow and then rubbing your aching muscles with wads of cash.The point is, I think an inanimate object is going to make more money on this movie than me.On the upside, it seems as though there’s a good chance we’re actually going to make the movie in the near future.I mean, things can certainly still go horribly wrong, but, like I said, we’ve hired a beaver.And everyone knows the old Hollywood saying - ‘It’s all just speculation until someone hires a beaver.’

But before we make any beaver movies, we’re taking the girls on vacation.We’re driving.18 hours.Which, if you’ve driven as far as the supermarket with our whole gang you’ll know is something that none of us is likely to survive.If you have brilliant suggestions for occupying children in the car or are willing to write an Ambien prescription for kids under two, please contact me ASAP.

Until then, I promise my days of intensely focusing on my facial hair to the exclusion of all else are behind me and I will post again before you can say sock puppet.Meanwhile, may I suggest touching foreheads with someone and laughing hysterically?It looks super fun.

Kyle Killen...

... writes fiction and other nonsense. His work has appeared in Mcsweeney's, Salon.com, The Mid-American Review, The Berkley Fiction Review, The Black Warrior Review, and numerous other places ending in the word Review. He previously wrote letters to gestating children and even won an award once.

He now lives with a large number of women and cats, which is exactly as hip and exciting as you think it sounds.